Early last year I was honoured to be asked by one of my clients to shoot pictures at the Alberta Children’s Hospital Candy Cane gala in December. I do not typically shoot events like this as I am not equipped with a lot of portal flash equipment so I was a little leery. When she went on to say how she knew I would capture the little ones faces and their excitement at this event I was sold. Yes, the children get to attend this gala. HOW FUN! I then met with organizing committee at the foundation, only to learn that this was a huge event with 1300 people and with a goal of raising $750,000…yikes! I needed to recruit – Jess and I would not be enough:) So I passed along names of a couple of amazing event and wedding photographers Bill Marsh and Mark Wikkerink and was thrilled when they both generously donated their time as well. It was an AMAZING event and the foundation raised almost $900,000 this year! A wonderful evening for the children, their parents and the foundation. I highly recommend it as a charitable event – it was a spectacular event focussed on fun for the children, in support of an amazing resource we have in Calgary. Here are a few of our images from the evening:)

So in the midst of changing my logo out, I had to change out one of the large art pieces that I had in the entrance to the studio. Since it was a large piece of canvas, I thought about having the logo trimmed off and having it re-wrapped but I also thought that it would be a great memory to keep and it would allow me to start to fill the walls in my own house;) I also decided not to because as I was working with a new vendor for the display for Cherry Four, I fell in love with a sample they had. So I had this 30×40 mounted on a rounded piece of steel. STUNNING! Last year a few client were asking for something new and different and this fits this criteria well. I have a few more things in the works and will share as I get them completed.

As many of you know Cherry Four, a children’s boutique in Calgary, is a commercial client of mine. After many years in Inglewood, Cherry Four is moving to the very trendy main road in Kensington. On Friday I dropped off the display piece (shown below) for the front window and was already so impressed with the new space. With this move Cherry Four is seeing a bit of a rebrand with a new logo and an updated look to the space. There is no doubt that Fev’s attention to detail, unique, top quality products and AMAZING customer service will still continue to make Cherry Four one of Calgary’s top children’s boutiques. The exact address is 1111 Kensington Road NW – only a couple doors down from Crave Cupcakes so go have a little look around and then grab a snack;)

Fev and I are planning a few things over the rest of the year so stay tuned!

I had the awesome experience of doing a shoot back in February for the Breast Cancer Supportive Care Foundation (BCSC). The funny thing about this opportunity was that it came the week of the anniversary of my mum passing. I was so honoured to be asked to provide pictures for their marketing communications. The shoot was done with women and families that were fighting and surviving breast cancer. It was an amazing experience for me to work with such women of strength and seeing the support of their loved ones. Due to the sensitivity of the work I will not be sharing any of the pictures here. I still wanted to bring recognition to this foundation though as I was so impressed with everyone that I met through this experience. The staff at BCSC, the survivors and the board. The genuine care, support, gratitude was overwhelming.

The support that this foundation offers is so important. It was absolutely apparent how this group had helped each other through difficult times with an understanding that is not completely understood by families/friends. Part of the reason for my support of this foundation is that I have always felt like I was not able to really support my mum very well. My mum was incredibly strong and extremely private and the last thing that she ever wanted to do was to have her children “mother” her. Fortunately my mum had an amazing support system in the nursing/teaching community in which she worked (as well as her family, of course) but I am sure that a community of women who had gone through similar experiences would have been very valuable to her.

Thank you BCSC for giving me to the opportunity to work with you. Thank you to the ladies that participated…your strength was unbelieveably inspiring.

So I have been mentioning a few projects that I have been working on over the last little while and so many of them are starting to get completed. The logo was one thing that I wanted to freshen up after 5 years. It was exciting to roll that out last week and get some awesome feedback. Another project that I have been working on was a video of a photo experience with Tot Shots. It is a chance to see me, the studio and how a typical session works with me. I mentioned a few months ago, a lot of clients are wanting to do their research and meet with me to see the studio and get to know me. Of course, you are always welcome to come meet with me to ensure that I am the photographer for you but I know how busy we all are so thought that this might help.

I have to give Jess complete credit for putting it all together. Part of the reason that it has taken me so long to get this done was because it is hard to find the time to learn a new editing program/process and secondly I really prefer to be behind the camera! There are a few other things that I want to incorporate at some point but here is the first attempt…click HERE to link to the video section on my website.